


Love is Blind

by Enide_Dear



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, also Gimli despairs of elves being flat earthers, despite the fact that, it really IS flat to them, legolas plus Sam plus food is my one true platoinic relationship, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 02:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21420730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enide_Dear/pseuds/Enide_Dear
Summary: Sam loves elves, and despite the ridicolousness of it all, Gimli can't help but being jealous.
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 24
Kudos: 308





	Love is Blind

They weren't even a week from Rivendell when Legolas looked down on his plate and frowned. Sam had cooked as he always did at the end of the days long walk, defending his position at the cooking fire with such ferociousness that no one as yet had dared challenge him. They were all aware that the gardener snuck out the best parts of every meal for his Master and it was a cause of some hidden smiles and meaningful glances exchanged whenever the rest of the Fellowship assumed neither of the two Hobbits noticed.

Nobody begrudged Frodo whatever comforts he could get and Sam somehow turned deaf when his Master tried to protest. Frodo would get the best of their meager meals and that was the end of it.

But it had taken almost a week for anyone to notice there were someone who always ended up getting the second best food.

"Samwise," Legolas looked up, his voice somewhere between offended and polite as he tried to return the plate with just somewhat better pieces of boiled potatoes, somewhat bigger pieces of bacon and somewhat less burned grilled tomatoes "I don't want you - or anyone else in this Fellowship -" he cast a piercing glance at the dwarf with whom he had been arguing all day "- to think that me being a prince means I'm entitled to any different kind of treatment from everyone else. We are a long way from my lands and out here my title means nothing. It is not fair to give me special treatment every dinner."

There came an expected snort from Gimli but for once Legolas refused to rise to the bait. He kept looking at Sam, who was now blushing fiercely and stammering helplessly.

"Oh, it's not your title he's impressed by." Pippin somehow managed to say despite having his mouth full of potatoes. "It's just that you are an elf, you see."

"What?" Legolas turned to stare at the younger hobbit but Pippin had just shuffled in a whole tomato in his mouth and was unable to communicate other than waving his arms in the air. Frodo came to his rescue, poking at his own perfectly boiled potatoes.

"It's true," Frodo smiled. "Sam loves elves. He's always loved elves, even since he was a child."

"And now he has one of his very own to take care of," Merry had finished his food with remarkable speed and was working on lighting his pipe. "So don't expect to get off easily from his care."

"Samwise? Is this true?" Legolas turned back to the gardener whose beet-red face revealed the truth of his peers words all by itself.

To the surprise of everyone, Legolas burst out laughing.

"Well, I could barely say no to such a boon, then! but perhaps I can reciprocate. This groove shows some promise, and I think I smelled some late-year mushrooms when we entered. Once we're finished with our meal, perhaps we can go look for them? Aragorn told me how much your people love mushrooms."

"I'll go with you!" Merry was on his feet in an instant and the only thing stopping Pippin from agreeing with him was the bacon he was ferociously chewing on.

"If we are to be able to bring any food back to camp, I think it's better i just bring Sam," Legolas winked.

"Really, sir?!" Sam lit up like a beacon.

"If I am to eat the best, I better start paying back, don't I?" Legolas smiled.

In the general mess that occured after that statement, nobody say the utter confusion and unexpected hurt on Gimli's face.

"The world is round! It's an orb! If you start going in one direction you will just come around and end up in the same place!" Gimli looked ready to tear his braids out in despair but there was also a rather amused smile on his face.

"Ridiculous. Everyone know it's flat like a plate. People have seen the edge of it, you know! It's more like walking from one room to another." Legolas looked equally amused at the argument but also just as annoyed. Somewhere ahead of them Aragorn and Gandalf exchanged glances and rolled their eyes.

"You mean *elves* have seen it!"

"Elves are people!" Legolas shook his head. "I can't believe dwarves denying the evidence of their own eyes - or someone else's eyes."

"Oh? And how do you explain the movements of the Sun and the Moon and such events as solar eclipses if there world is not round?" Gimli asked slyly.

"That is easy. Arien and Tillion travels under the Sea at night on secret paths. And though she is reliable, he is somewhat more unpredictable and his paths takes him closer or nearer to her, occasionally even eclipsing her light temporarily."

"She and...what are you talking about?! The Sun is a huge ball of burning gas and the Moon is as far as our strongest telescopes can see mostly rock!"

"She is a fire Spirit! I can bloody well see her!" The elf waved at the overcast sky. "Maybe not today, but on a clear day!"

"There, there children, you are both a little right and a little wrong," Gandalf mumbled to the general sniggering of the hobbits.

"We also call the Sun 'she'," Samwise offered meekly and Legolas puffed up as if this was the ultimate proof of his theory.

"Sam is with me," he said smugly and put a hand on the gardener's shoulder, causing the hobbit to get violently red faced. "Come Samwise. I think a little detour to pick the last blackberries would serve us well. Before the dwarf tries to convince us they're not actually berries."

"They are not!" Gimli shouted after the retreating pair with more despair in his voice than an argument about botanic defensions really merited. "They're technically fruit!"

His shoulders slumped as he was utterly ignored and abandoned by the now chatting pair.

"Oh, it was Rosie Cotton," Sam sighed wistfully. "She was dancing with ribbons in her hair and, well....my heart seemed to swell so I thought it would explode in my chest." He smiled a little. "Anyway, that was my first love. What about you, Master elf?"

Gimli stiffened by the campfire. He hadn't listened carefully enough to know who had brought up this topic, but he was not at all comfortable with it. What if he was asked? He'd had no romantic love, first or more and it suddenly brought to light the strange feelings *he* felt in his own chest. But worse, much worse, was Sam's innocent question. Gimli had even less desire to hear legolas wax poetically about some love than to be forced to admit his own lack of experience in the area. He made to excuse himself, but found himself frozen by dread.

"My first love? Oh, older than me by almost 200 years," Legolas was almost pointedly not looking at Gimli as he spoke and if he was aware of the sudden attention to himself, he pretended not to. "And taller."

Gimli felt dread run through his veins like molten lead. The elf prattled on.

"So strong and reliable. And beautiful, of course."

From somewhere beyond the veil of heartbreak, Gimli could hear Aragorn groan as if he'd caught on to a very bad and possibly very sindarin joke.

"I used to visit them every day, just to be with them, to touch them and breath their scent."

And now Gandalf was also coughing as if he understood.

"Such a wonderful collection of birds...."

"Wait, is this a tree?!" Frodo suddenly blurted out and Gimli almost jolted back to life as the implication struck and a gale of laughter rose around the campfire. he realized he was on his feet, staring at the elf with equal amounts of exasperation and joy.

"You....you.....daft elf!" Was all he managed before he stomped of into the night to try to get his head to stop spinning.

Absolutely nothing in his life had prepared Gimli for the feeling of being jealous on a hobbit on behalf of an elf, and yet here he was. True, he and Legolas could barely exchange greetings in the morning without ending up in a heated debate on whether it was foggy or merely misty and the elf had a truly autricously unscientific view of the world but.....it was fun. At least, Gimli thought it was fun, but he'd always been one to throw himself head over heels into everything. And it was interesting to get your worldview challenged. Last night when he'd been on night watch he'd stared into the Moon until his eyes watered and just as he was blinking he thought he saw something on the face of the rock, something that might have been an elf-like spirit waving back. Perhaps two things could be true at the same time. Perhaps the world could be both flat and round. Perhaps the celestial bodies could be both spiritual and and made of matter.

Perhaps he was just falling so head over heels for the elf that he'd started seeing his likeness in stupid sappy romantic things like the way tree boughts moved in the wind or sunlight dappled grass or even the face of the moon. He was a dwarf! he wasn't used to such...emotional ways. And yet here he was, undeniably.

And even worse, he was getting out-competed in the ways of the heart by a hobbit. A hobbit!

Sam didn't have any problem showing the elf how he felt; he kept spoiling him in a hundred little ways. And Legolas reciporced, bringing the hobbit berries or herbs for cooking or lifting him up to collect hazelnut from the top of a bush. Singing him songs while Sam peeled potatoes. Being a comfort to each other, not like Gimli who never seemed to do things other than get into uproarious discussions with the elf. Fun, rousing, interesting discussions that could probably be heard over several kilometers, but discussions nonetheless.

Gimli didn't doubt that the hobbit was infatuated with the elf - if a dwarf could fall, then it was no stretch of imagination to think that a hobbit could - but could Legolas really feel the same way? Trying to imagine an elf and a hobbit in a relationship was about as outrageous as.... Gimli sighed heavy. As imagining an elf and a dwarf together.

He'd been poking the fire hard enough that it had almost gone out during his reveries and now it was as sullen as he was. Gimli took a deep breath and started to build it up again, hoping to regain some of his own compusture at the same time when he realized someone had sat down next to him. Most of the fellowship was either collecting wood or setting up night camp and Gimli was more than a little surprised to see that it was Sam who had approached him. He and the gardener had not exchanged many words since the journey began, despite the fact that Gimli usually got along very well with hobbits. Sam looked awkward and embarrassed but also determined and Gimli's heart fell.

"I think we need to talk, Mister Gimli." Sam said with just a tiny quaver in his voice.

Gimli didn't know what to expect as he followed Sam far enough into the woods that they could have some privacy. What could Sam want with him? A mental image of being challenged to a duel to the death for the hand of Legolas flashed through his brain, but he quickly pushed it away. Men might do such foolishness but that was not the way of dwarves. And not of hobbits either, he was willing to bet.

"So," Sam said as they were alone. "It's about Mister Legolas."

"Yes, I assumed as much." Gimli still wondered where this was going. "He is very fond of you." He added in what he hoped was a neutral way.

Sams stern glance indicated that it had not been neutral in the slightest and also that he would appreciate it if Gimli stopped pouting. The hobbit pulled himself up to his full height - slightly under Gimli's chin- and crossed his arms. Suddenly he looked very much more like a strict father than an awkward hobbit.

"I just need to know if your intentions for him are honourable."

Gimli dropped the pipe he'd pulled out to distract himself and almost stepped on it in sudden mind-freezing panic.

"What?!" He managed to press out.

"I know you dwarves are an honourable sort - Mister Bilbo always said so - but I must say I think you are moving forward a bit too quickly." Sam said very seriously.

"I haven't done anything!" Gimli cast his mind back these last few weeks but couldn't find anything he'd done that could possible be interpreted as wooing someone.

"You have all these discussions with him, about his home and his family and his childhood and you listen to his opinions...He doesn't talk to anyone else like that. I don't think he's really used to anyone caring about him as, well, a person before. About *him*, not the Prince or the Elf or Thranduil's son."

"That's just....he is interesting...." Gimli's worldview was already tilting and the hobbit wasn't helping. Suddenly he saw all his actions from a slightly different perspective. And Legolas' actions to. A strange kind of susurrus filled his ears and he had to sit down. "And he...seems to think I am to..."

"And you always put your bedroll down between him and the wind. And you are the first one to point out places we can take a quick bath because you know he doesn't like being dirty and you brought him flowers!" Sam ticked of on his stubby fingers. "Now look here Mister Gimli, I know I'm just a gardener and I don't know how things are done in the wide word but I do have eyes to see with and I see you behaving around him like a hobbit lad around a lass. And he sees it too and I'm not saying he doesn't like it but elves are, well, they take things slower so he has to get away and think about it a bit and that's when he goes berry picking with a friend. With me. See?"

Gimli could only gape, plopped down on his backside in the dry autumn leaves.

"I never brought him flowers," was all he could manage. "I thought they were cooking herbs!"

Sam was already half way back to camp but even from behind Gimli could see him roll his eyes.

"They were *roses* Mister Dwarf!"

After his head stopped spinning and he returned to the campfire, Gimli felt like he for the first time saw the way Legolas shone up as he approached. Not just noticed, but really *saw* it. Saw the cheeky glint in his eyes, the way he pulled himself up in that way that meant he'd figured out a new topic to debate and was eager to do so. Eager enough that he didn't even look at Sam who was very much not looking at either of them.

"So," the elf said as he hurried over to sit down next to Gimli - just a little closer than strictly necessary. "About sentient trees..."

Gimli groaned and shook his head, but it was mostly for show. He did want to know more, even if he would argue the whole way. Talking trees! The elf was utterly strange. And fascinating. And as they threw himself whole hearted into the debate to the point where Legolas didn't even notice the better rations Sam gave him, Gimli noticed how much Legolas laughed, how much he listened to his arguments, how close he sat and how much his own heart was beating.

He realized how blind he had been. Sam was a friend of them both, nothing more or less and he would do well to listen to his advice, even though the 'take it slow' part still felt ridiculous seeing as he hadn't actually done anything yet.

*Well,* he thought to himself as they laid down back to back to sleep a few hours later and a warmth spread inside him that had nothing to do with the campfire, *there's no hurry. We'll be on this quest for a year at best. There's plenty of time.* Dwarves were patient by nature. He could be patient.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Legolas turned over and he was suddenly enveloped in long arms and long legs, a strong heart beating against his back and a warm, amused voice whispering in his ear. 

"Were you really jealous of *Sam*?! And you accuse me of living in an unrealistic world." The elf snorted and Before Gimli could possibly find the words to answer, the elf was already asleep. 

Gimli shook his head but couldn't help but smile. 

"Daft elf," he muttered affectionate, and fell asleep as well.


End file.
